


Erasing all the saints

by orphan_account



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-25
Updated: 2011-09-25
Packaged: 2017-10-24 00:47:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caught up in a never-ending conflict, moving on isn’t as easy as it seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Erasing all the saints

**Author's Note:**

> written for the erik_charles summer fic exchange.

There’s a deep cut on her side, the blood only just recently stopped by bandages, and Azazel’s face is stricken with worry. Riptide is still unconscious and the rest of their tiny army is busy stitching each other up.

They’ve suffered losses, Raven knows. Gaping holes in the right side and there’s too much, too much blood and too many people, for her to figure out exactly who right now. She picks Erik out in the mess of people, his back straight and his face tight. He's angry, she knows, and it's not only because of the loss they’ve suffered. She can see every line of this fight etched into his face. That the loss was to Charles is the greatest, and she feels it too, though not in the ways Erik does. Not quite a betrayal.

With an ache in her chest, Raven tries not to think of Charles.

Erik reaches her side a moment later, and he’s bleeding, deep red against the shock white of his face.

"You're hurt," she says, and for a second it's as if he's looking right through her. Her fingers press into the gash at his forehead, though, and Raven watches as he settles back into himself. She says, " _Erik_ ," and the lines press deeper.

His voice is harsh, rough from the smoke, when he says, "We need to be ready. In case--" He breaks off and Raven feels his disbelief. Deep into her bones, she knows Charles. Better than herself, she knows that he wouldn't attack now, not when they're already weakened.

“He wouldn’t,” she says, but she's misjudged him already today and it's as if she's there in Erik's head, each of her thoughts echoed there in his face. Charles has grown his army, the X-Men. _A bunch of misfits,_ Erik had said once, but they're stronger now.

-

She wakes up the next morning, late, with the echo of Charles in her head, “I’m sorry, tell him I’m sorry.” He’s there, in the back of her head, until late in the day when Erik snaps at her again, voice still rough.

She doesn't snap back, only barely. She thinks, maybe, that he's looking for a fight, looking to tear into someone the way he's been torn into, torn apart. The betrayal, she thinks, of something deeper than friends cuts deeper each day, but Raven, after so many years with Charles, won't be that person for him.

Instead, she raises an eyebrow at him and watches as his mouth sets into a grim line.

"Sit," he says, a terse command, and she does. They sit in a somewhat companionable peace for nearly an hour, until dinner is ready and the set of Erik's shoulders has relaxed slightly.  


-

The fire's gone out, only ashy smoke left, and Raven stumbles a little in the darkness. The ground is rough and finding her footing is hard. She's not bleeding, though she's covered in blood, and she sees the way Erik's eyes rake over her when she finds him. The look on his face is fierce, his smile edging into terrifying.

It was quick this time. A fast strike against the government and the X-Men just a step too slow. Raven smiles an echo of Erik's, and feels the triumph.

"This is ours," she says, and doesn't resist when Erik tucks her hand into his. He's not smiling anymore, mouth curling down at the corners. Emma is coming, her shine lighting the area around her.

Erik says, "This is our night," and there are so many things there in his voice. Triumph and sorrow, Raven can't even begin to pick it all apart, not with Emma nearly upon them. She tightens her hand on his, and helps to plan the next attack.

-

"Neutral territory, Erik," Charles says, and Raven ignores the way Erik stiffens. She turns just slightly, though, her shoulder an inch or two ahead of Erik's. She's not sure who she's protecting, but Charles is right.

The middle of nowhere is the closest they could come to neutral territory and it doesn't seem to have mattered at all so far. Erik flexes his hand and Emma draws herself up on his other side. _Eyes open_ , she projects, and there's three on the other side too: Charles, Hank, and a man she's never seen before. Eyes covered by a dark pair of sunglasses, Raven spares very little thought on that one.

Her focus is Charles. Hair thinning a little, he looks older. They've been doing this for years now, and she still misses him. Misses slipping into his room at night, scared of the dark and Kurt, and curling up against him. His bedtime stories were always the worst, she remembers suddenly.

Raven swallows, and tries to return to her focus. It's been fleeting ever since Erik detailed his plan. Not so thorough, really, but difficult all the same.

They'd won the last conflict, decimating an already weak force, and still, Raven could sense the restlessness in their leader. Tense and sleepless, he'd spent days pacing through the compound. Impossible to settle and volatile, Erik had scared off half a dozen fearless mutants before Raven had gone to him herself.

Fiercely annoyed, what he'd said had thrown her completely.

"Finish the X-Men, finish _him_."

She swallows again and her body is tensed for a fight.

And then Charles tilts his head to the side and he’s inside her head, not probing, but projecting a quiet, “Leave us, please.”

Her heart stutters a beat and Raven covers her shock, but the man with the glasses visibly startles, getting out an irritated, “Professor--” before Charles simply shakes his head. He’s looking at no one but Erik and Raven’s entire center of gravity shifts a little to the left. She takes a step back, two, and with a nod from Charles turns away.

Emma is more reluctant, defiant until Erik commands her obedience. Raven feels her bristle from ten feet away.

-

They’re alone for ten minutes, no more, and Raven can’t hear any of what they say. There’s the gentle hum of their voices, but nothing more as she watches them.

She watches as Erik bends to Charles, watches Charles lift his head. They are a study in body language, the curves of backs and necks, arms and hands, fingers.

Ten minutes and Erik’s back, shoulders and mouth relaxed. “Let’s go,” he says, as Charles looks on.


End file.
